Wednesday, July 22, 2015

July 21st

The day dawned with a clear blue sky which soon clouded over
and developed some very heavy sharp showers. There have been no wild flowers to
mention over the last few days. After these heavy showers seeds should start to
germinate.

We arrived at Niagara Dam late in the morning. It is a very
rocky area. The rocks appear like ‘ironstone’. They look so rugged and
dangerous to fall on. I must take care..not another slip!

After lunch we walked around the ‘Break Away Trail’ which
goes around the small dam. The Niagara Dam was built during the late 1800s to
supply the township of Niagara which was a busy mining area. The actual Niagara
township only lasted for about 20 years before gold became scarce. The dam was
not completed in time for use by these miners.

The short walk we took was dominated by rocks..their
formation, their colour and the care needed to walk over them. The colours
ranged from brown, tan, bright orange, white, cream and even some shades of
deep red/purple..an artists delight. A deluge of water over them would be
spectacular. At the time the dam wall was constructed a ‘Debris Trap’ was built
as well with the aim to stop branches and other smaller debris being washed
into the dam during a flood. The trap consists of a substantial iron fence
consisting of uprights close together with a railing along the top and set into
a concrete wall.

The afternoon improved and allowed us to light a fire and
bake a loaf of Gluten Free bread for me. The shops are few and far between in
the Inland and only a few have heard of GF products.

Niagara Dam

The GF bread part way through the cooking process.

John is still trying to identify Eucalypt trees. He works with a computer program which has an elimination process. There are so
many different varieties. Even the Mallee trees which I am using for dyeing
fabric are difficult to identify. There are 57 varieties of Mallee trees in the
Murchison Bio-region alone, the region in which we were in, a couple of days
ago. In total, there are approximately 100 eucalypt trees in that region. So
many of them are similar..they may all have small leaves, cream trunks and tiny
buds and nuts…where to next? If you are really keen you would need to compare
the size and shape of the seeds or cut open the buds to see the different ways
the flowers develop. I think we will leave many as unidentified.